Hello from Africa. I am on the second day of the trip. This morning after breakfast we drove from Johannesburg into Swaziland (about 4.5 hour trip). Close to the border between South Africa and Swaziland, the terrain changed quickly from rolling hills to mountainous. A south African KTM member had told my wife and I, and yes, Swaziland IS a beautiful countryside. This afternoon, we visited a carepoint near the city of Manzini called BaleKane. This care point has been developed from nothing but a 20acre plot of land to a location where about 100 kids come for food and school over the past three years. Some of the children walk for 2.5 hrs to get there. Most are orphans, but the primary objective is feeding, education and Swaziland led spiritual discipleship for the children. There are about 10 Go-Go’s (Grandmother aged women) that rotate through cooking and feeding duties. And there are teachers on site for grades pre-4th. These children are relatively well nourished and are receiving love and hope at this care point. I can give more details later, but significant progress has been made to date. They plan to add a 5th grade class room in January of next year.
From the moment I stepped out of the van, the children were on us with bright faces and greetings. We spent time interacting by taking pictures and showing them the screens. Most of the time, I had a tightly packed crowd of 4-10 kids trying to get recorded and/or view the play back. At any point in time there was one or two little ones riding on my arms or legs depending on if I was standing or sitting. They were hungry for the attention and love. I was happy to give hugs to these children. The reaction was once they got a hug, they pressed in and soaked it up. In all the fun one girl was tripped to the ground. She didn’t mind when I stood her up and wiped the dirt from under her eyes, and gave her a hug. She became one of my multiple hip riders for several minutes. I didn’t want to leave, but the children had to start their walk back to their ‘homes’, and we left for dinner and a culture training meeting. Tomorrow we will visit 3 or 4 carepoints. One or two are starting from what is called a ‘green field’.
Here is a short video clip to give you an idea how fun and active the interaction was while relating with these children.
Meeting Swaziland Children from KnownToMe on Vimeo.
Beautiful Swaziland Country
First little girl to be carried about for several minutes.
Children getting ready for silly pictures.
Picture with just a few of the kids.
When I asked this little girl her name, she stated her name followed by “...I am six years old, I am a girl” as she smiled and pointed to herself. She hung around at the end for extra holding, hugs and pictures.
I was quite impressed with this young man. His name has a click sound in it (I need more siswati training), he is nine years old, and spoke to me very well in English. Before I left, he told me “I want to be your friend”. He wanted to know when I could come back.
Lifting you up daily!
